Freedom or “Unfreedom”

1

“They begin school an exclamation point and a question mark; too often the leave as a plan period.” - Lillian Weber (p. 41)

2“The linear, the instrumental, the

serviceable are emphasized without thought or question. The moral and the ethical are ignored, obscured, and obfuscated, also without much thought.” – William Ayers 1944 - (p. 17)

3“

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

from http://www.quotationspage.com/search.php3?Search=schooling&startsearch=Search&Author=Mark+Twain&C=mgm&C=motivate&C=classic&C=coles&C=poorc&C=lindsly

4“She starts school with an empty cassette in

her head. Teachers turn the recorder on or off as they please. When the tape is full, she is finished. Schooled.” William Ayers 1944 - (p.7)

5

“Education is the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it and by the same token save it from that ruin which, except for renewal, except for the coming of the new and the young, would be inevitable. And education, too, is where we decide whether we love our children enough not to expel them from our world and leave them to their own devices, nor to strike from their hands their chance of undertaking something new, something unforeseen by us, but to prepare them in advance for the task of renewing a common world” – Hannah Arendt, from 1968 – (p. 20)

6Authoritarian, one-dimensional and

unidirectional.

7….by your own lights, capture your

education for yourself: seize it, take hold of it, and grasp it in your own hands, in your own way, and in your own time.” – William Ayers, 1944 (p. 33)

8Teachers as “Big Noise: thinking, acting,

telling, directing, planning, choosing, controlling, managing, disciplining…..has the whistle, the grade book, the desk, the chair, and the whip.” - William Ayers 1944 – (p. 6-7)

9Classroom as slave galley – the teacher

merely beats the drum.

10Teacher prep programs to include “Turning

toward the Student as a Fellow Creature; Building a Republic of Many Voices and a Community with and for Students; Feeling the Weight of the World through Your Own Lifting Arms; Teaching toward Freedom. – William Ayers, 1944 – (p. 18)